Swimmer Summer McIntosh, the first Canadian to win three gold medals in a summer or winter Olympic Games, captured the women's 400-meter freestyle in world record time for her first individual world short course championship gold medal on Tuesday in Budapest, Hungary, Report informs via CBC.
In her first major race since the Paris Games in July, McIntosh led from start to finish, touching the wall in three minutes 50.25 seconds. The previous world mark of 3:51.30 was set by Li Bingjie of China on October 27, 2022.
McIntosh's performance also set an Americas record and world junior record for the 18-year-old. Her 3:52.80 previous best in the 400 free was also a Canadian mark.
"There's been so many other amazing swims tonight for Team Canada and this is just Day 1," McIntosh, who was awarded $25,000 US for her efforts, stated in a Swimming Canada news release. "The next couple days of racing should be awesome and we'll just try to keep the momentum going."
"This is definitely one of my favorite, if not my favorite, pool in the world because it holds so many memories and it's a really fast pool," McIntosh told Devin Heroux of CBC Sports this week at a training session ahead of the event.
A few hours later, McIntosh was named the recipient of the Northern Star Award as Canada's athlete of the year (formerly the Lou Marsh Trophy), with media members from across Canada voting Tuesday on the annual Toronto Star award.
CBC Sports analyst Brittany MacLean said the 400 freestyle has been "a bit of a mental hurdle" for McIntosh since she hadn't won the race previously on the international scene.
But McIntosh started strong Tuesday and held the pace with long strokes and moved well in and out of the walls through 16 lengths of the pool at Duna Arena.